Clementine ...

I have to admit my post will be biased since I'm a huge fan of Amarok 1.4. You don't know how many people wanted to have amarok 1.4 even on Windows, once I let them play with it from time to time. When I first heard of the v2 of Amarok I was excited and hurry to get my hand on it and the screenshots was very attractive. I didn't wanted to start testing it before the final release. But once I get it, it was just a complete new media application but nothing like Amarok was except the name and the same people I've introduced to it just deleted it. I looked around then discovered Pana which is what Amarok was right before it's death and I'm still using it, but a few weeks ago the pana's developer wrote on his page that he switched to Clementine, so I decided to give it another try.

Clementine I first tested it when it was 0.5.3 and it was "hmmm what's that useless rain thing", it was kinda interesting but 100% of my scripts were useless (I like the dcop interface on Amarok). The move to MPris, seems to be a very interesting way to command the application. I tried to modify all my scripts (one of them picks a album in a pseudo random way and fills the playlist section so I can hear all my collection) but the implementation of MPRIS in Clementine is not good enough (and the rain and the hypnotoad things are still there WTF that's not what I'm expecting from a media player). I still think Clementine is interesting, but I miss too much features yet to make the move.

I sometimes gives to Amarok v2 a try, but it's getting worse, the last time, from a clean install I have to start it over almost twice a song.

Bringing me to this, I'm still using Pana, I'm looking forward to being able to play with Clementine, once some missing features will be there, and I'm still confused about what to do with Amarok v2.

Reincarnation? Maybe

But it's not there yet. Not by a long shot. Weirdly enough, I think 2.x is closer at this point (though the default layout is an inelegant and unfriendly waste of space and getting it usable takes a lot finangling).

Following them at their bleeding-edge it's still anyone's game, but Clementine is clearly behind on some crucial elements. (decent labels support, old context view, etc) Personal taste, but that's where I'm standing.